He’s ready’: McLaren hopes Lando Norris can score first F1 win in 2024

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says Lando Norris is in every position to secure his first F1 win of the season if the team can deliver what they expect from a competitive car.
However, Stella and McLaren boss Zak Brown warned that Red Bull could once again dominate from the start.
Stella was speaking before the team unveiled the new livery of its 2024 car, the MCL38, at the team’s headquarters in Woking. He was confident in the latest model and in the potential of the 24-year-old Norris to finally take his first F1 win in his sixth F1 season.
Last year, McLaren were significantly off the pace from the start, but their improvements in Austria meant they were regularly fighting for the podium, and Norris benefited.
Stella said: “If you look at the Austrian numbers, Lando is the second highest scorer after Max (Verstappen).
This reflects the quality of his driving and performance, which puts him at the top of the grid. The first win is always the most important, but after that it gets a little easier.
The main reason this wasn’t possible was because we didn’t put Rand in a position to consistently fight for victory.
He’s ready for that, but more importantly, is he ready to provide a machine that can take advantage of the opportunity?
Last season in Austria, Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri scored nine podiums, including six second places for Norris, helping the team secure fourth place in the constructors’ championship.
Her car has been steadily improving, and Stella was optimistic that it would make even more progress this year.
He stressed that she does not expect last season’s progress to slow down.
The team will be able to make full use of the new wind tunnel and simulator facility, which will be operational in 2023, for new car development, with Rob Marshall hired by Red Bull as technical director of engineering and David Sanchez working on new car development.
You can now benefit from being adopted by Technical Head of Vehicle Concepts and Performance at Ferrari. Everything that Stella has proposed will allow us to improve on the upward trend of improvement experienced in the second half of 2023.
“If you look at the car, the suspension, the tires, the aerodynamics, all can offer a lot of benefits with this generation of regulations, so we’re looking to take advantage of those performance opportunities, he said. Still, expectations are already high that Red Bull, which won 21 out of 22 races last season, will once again demonstrate its strength.
Their lead last year was so large that in August they discontinued car upgrade development and focused on this year’s model, saying they were very confident they could maintain the lead they already had on the field. I showed it.
Stella said it was now able to take full advantage of the car’s accumulated development this year, and Brawn also feared it would make Red Bull unstoppable again. We want to continue to close the gap. Last year we were the second or third fastest team, depending on the route,” he said.
“While our vehicle development has been strong, Red Bull doesn’t seem to be able to develop to the level they were able to achieve last year.
This may come as a nasty surprise for all of us. Now, 2023 Things didn’t go as planned. Here in the UK, after the roller coaster ride of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, Chancellor Rishi Sunak promised stability and competent government, not to mention professionalism, integrity and accountability.